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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 5, 2018 at 12:09 am
Fifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King was shot to death as he stood on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He had come there to lead a march of striking garbage workers.
New York United States Senator—and now Presidential candidate—Robert Francis Kennedy had been scheduled to give a speech in Indianapolis, Indiana, before a black audience.
Just before he drove into the city to deliver his address, he learned of King’s assassination. There was a real danger that rioting would erupt. Police who had been assigned to protect him said they wouldn’t accompany him into the inner city.
Kennedy drove off anyway, leaving behind his police escort.
Standing on a podium mounted on a flatbed truck, Kennedy spoke for just four minutes and 57 seconds.
His waiting audience hadn’t yet learned of King’s death. Kennedy broke the news to gasps, and then gave an impromptu speech eulogizing the slain civil rights leader.
For the first time since the assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, he spoke publicly of that killing. He noted that JFK—like King—had also been killed by a white man.
And he called upon the crowd to “dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world.”
Riots erupted in 60 cities following King’s death—but not in Indianapolis.
Fifty years ago, Robert Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort from those aroused by Donald Trump.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator from New York (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
In October, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his wise counsel helped steer America from the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. As a U.S Senator he championed civil rights and greater Federal efforts to fight poverty.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished—while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4—when he was shot in the back of the head.
His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel.
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6. He was 42.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
America has never again seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates have waged war on crime—and the poor. And Democratic candidates have moved to the Right in eliminating anti-poverty programs.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia—and the compassion to fight poverty. At a time when Americans long for candidates to give them positive reasons for voting, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2018 at 12:04 am
In 2014, Arizona Republicans passed Senate Bill 1062.
This allowed business owners to legally discriminate against gay and lesbian customers—including the right to refuse medical care to them.
Its intent: To appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
Gays and their supporters reacted by threatening a legal business and tourism boycott of Arizona. And the business community and its supporters, alarmed, took notice.
- Large businesses—such as Apple, American Airlines, AT&T, Delta Airlines, Verizon and Intel—publicly opposed the measure.
- With Super Bowl XL1X scheduled to be played in 2015 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee expressed concern.
- Arizona’s United States Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake publicly urged Governor Jan Brewer to veto the measure, citing worries about the economic impact on the state’s businesses.
Faced with a choice between monetary greed and ideological fanaticism, Brewer chose to veto the legislation on February 26, 2014.
Governor Jan Brewer
Suddenly, Right-wingers who had anticipated becoming persecutors now claimed themselves to be victims. Among their rants on Twitter:
- “CNN led full court media press to take away rights of Christians. Just the beginning. Using tolerance as weapon against us. Wake up.” –John Nolte(@NolteNC)
- “Not sure what the GOP stands for when it stands against religious freedom out of pure fear of political correctness.” –Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)
- “Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer makes Christians in her state second class citizens.” –toddstarnes (@toddstarnes)
- “A sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty.” –The Center for Arizona Policy
American Rightists believed they had a right to withhold their business services from those they hated.
But they considered it unfair and even demonic for gays and their supporters to withhold monies from discriminatory Arizona businesses.
Story #3:
On February 14, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz slaughtered two faculty members and 15 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. His weapon of choice: An AR-15 assault rifle, often favored by gun massacre killers.
Among the students who survived the carnage: 17-year-old David Hogg. He quickly joined the student-led gun control advocacy group Never Again, becoming one of its best-known spokesmen.
David Hogg
He and his fellow student activists were immediately targeted for vicious insults and even death threats by the National Rifle Association and its shills—especially those in Congress and the Fox News Network.
One of these shills was Fox News host Laura Ingraham. On March 28, not content with attacking Hogg’s efforts to ban assault weaponry, she attacked him personally, tweeting:
“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.)”
Hogg hadn’t been able to get into UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, or UC Irvine, despite having a 4.2 grade point average.
For many Twitter users, this was beyond the pale, and they made their anger known:
“Laura, you’re a parent. This is pretty deplorable.”
“Can’t imagine why any adult would make fun of a kid over college rejections, let alone a kid who’s been through what the Parkland kids have.”
“What is the purpose of this tweet? What is wrong with you? Are you actually proud of this? Regardless of your political beliefs and motivations, THIS is how you choose to present yourself? You must be so sad, angry and scared.”
Laura Ingraham
But it fell to David Hogg to strike back in a way guaranteed to frighten even the most fanatical Rightists.
“I’m not going to stoop to her level and go after her on a personal level,” he said. “I’m going to go after her advertisers.”
He posted the following tweet to his 600,000 Twitter followers:
“Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
“Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers
1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair
Nutrish was the first advertiser to drop its sponsorship of Ingraham’s program. Other brands followed.
Suddenly alarmed, Ingraham tweeted the next day: “Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…”
Hogg dismissed her statement: “She only apologized after we went after her advertisers.” He said that he would accept her apology only if she denounced “the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight.”
Ingraham isn’t likely to do that. She has stayed silent since her tweet. Meanwhile, her advertisers have continued to fall off:
- The Atlantis
- Bayer
- Paradise Island Resort
- Office Depot
- Jenny Craig Miracle
- Ear
- Honda
- Progressive
- Hulu
- TripAdvisor
- Expedia
- Wayfair
- StitchFix
- Jos A. Bank
- Nestle and
- Johnson & Johnson.
Although only 17, David Hogg knows it’s better to stand up to tyrants than submit to them. He is sending a message that even the most hard-core Fascists can understand: Attack me and you’ll get it right back in your ugly faces.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 30, 2018 at 12:24 am
There are two ways to deal with bullies: Submit to them—or stand up to them.
Here are three stories of what happened when intended victims counterattacked their would-be predators.
Story #1:
Karen Handel, vice president of public affairs for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, had it all worked out.
She had fashioned what she believed was a politically viable plan for Komen to pull its grant monies from Planned Parenthood (PP).
Karen Handel
She didn’t care that this money went entirely for breast cancer screenings for poor women. What she did care about was that about 3% of all PP revenues went toward providing abortion services.
Since being hired by Komen as vice president of public affairs, in April, 2011, Handel had pushed to drop PP from grants. She had promised to de-fund PP during her failed 2010 campaign for governor of Georgia.
So, in 2012, she made her move.
The official version, as put out by Handel and the top brass of Komen, went: “We’ve halted grants to Planned Parenthood because it’s under investigation by Congress for misuse of funds.”
Unfortunately for Komen, the public instantly saw through the lie. And the results for Komen were as devastating as those that threatened to engulf Arizona two years later.
Any crank in Congress can start an “investigation” into anything.
And PP was “under investigation” by a crank: Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Stearns, a fanatical anti-abortionist, claimed he wanted to determine whether PP had spent public money on abortions over the last decade.
But Stearns didn’t hesitate to slander the patriotism of thousands of 9/11 “first responders”–the police, firefighters, construction workers and others who risked their lives to save their fellow Americans.
Rep. Cliff Stearns
He did so by demanding that they submit their names, birthplaces, addresses, government ID numbers and other personal data to the FBI to prove they were not terrorists.
Only then could they receive federally-subsidized medical care for injuries caused by exposure to toxic dust and debris at the site.
Not one terrorist was discovered in the resulting investigations.
Public outrage at Komen was immediate and overwhelming:
- More than 50 members of Congress signed letters asking Komen to reverse course.
- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly rebuked Komen and pledged $250,000 to PP.
- Approximately 37,000 people from all over the country signed a petition demanding Handel’s resignation.
- PP raised nearly $3 million in contributions.
Reeling before this onslaught of criticism, Komen issued a statement: “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants.”
Having failed in their latest assault on women’s rights, the Right’s would-be predators now portrayed themselves as victims:
- “The last time I checked,” Handel told Right-wing Fox News, “private non-profit organizations have a right and a responsibility to be able to set the highest standards and criteria on their own without interference, let alone the level of vicious attacks and coercion that has occurred by Planned Parenthood. It’s simply outrageous.”
- “Planned Parenthood campaigns to destroy anyone who questions them,” charged Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.
- “Their attitude is that of an immature teenager with an enormous sense of entitlement. This is just more proof that Planned Parenthood will pulverize anyone who dares to question them,” Dannenfelser said.
- “What Planned Parenthood did to that venerable and honorable organization [Komen Foundation] is nothing less than a Mafia-style shakedown,” said Steven H. Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. The Fund bitterly opposes abortion, gay marriage, birth control and the separation of church and state.
Many conservatives correctly defended Komen’s right, as a private charitable organization, to give—or withhold—its money as it saw fit.
But these same conservatives refused to grant PP’s outraged supporters the same right: To withhold their own monies from Komen.
National Review’s Daniel Foster called the backlash to Komen “disgusting,” attacking PP and “the Left” for their “gangsterism.”
Story #2:
Two years later, in 2014, the Right made another move to strip Americans it didn’t like of their most basic rights. Their weapon of choice: Arizona Senate Bill 1062.
The legislation had been passed by the Republican-controlled State House of Representatives and Senate. Its intent:
- Allow business owners to turn away gay and lesbian customers.
- Allow employers to deny equal pay to women.
- Allow individuals to renege on contract obligations.
- Allow hospitals to refuse to provide medical care to a gay or lesbian patient.
And all of these actions would have been legally protected—so long as “sincere religious belief” was cited as the reason.
The legislation was written by the Right-wing advocacy group Center for Arizona Policy and the Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.
Officially, its intent was to prevent the government from forcing business owners to act in ways contrary to strongly held religious beliefs.
Unofficially, its intent was to appease the hatred of gays and lesbians by the religious Right, a key constituency of the Republican party.
Gays and their supporters reacted by threatening a legal business and tourism boycott of Arizona. And the business community and its supporters, alarmed, took notice.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 27, 2018 at 12:05 am
SS Obergruppenfuhrer (General) Reinhard Heydrich laid the foundations for the “Final Solution of the Jewish question.” This resulted in the extermination of six million Jewish men, women and children.
Nevertheless, he was dogged throughout his 11-year career in the Third Reich by rumors that he was himself part-Jewish.
Similarly, former Pennsylvania United States Senator Rick Santorum has made banning abortion a center-piece of his political life, in and out of office. Even so, he found himself accused, during his 2012 campaign for President, of being “soft” on abortion.
In January, 2012, in advance of the South Carolina primary, pink fliers attacking Santorum’s credentials as an anti-abortionist began turning up on windshields at many political events in that state.
Their author was Elizabeth Leichert, an anti-abortion activist.
Dated January 18, 2012, the flier read:
“Like many Christians I know, I was originally very attracted to Rick Santorum’s positions – especially on the Right to Life issue.
“But that was before I began digging into his record….
“Did you know Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist named Tom Allen?
“…This abortion doctor was 30 years her senior! In fact, he delivered her as a baby!
“The only reason they broke up was that Karen wanted kids – while Tom was busy killing them.
Karen Garver and Dr. Thomas Allen
“In fact, he [Tom Allen] said, ‘Karen had no problems with what I did for a living,’ and said that Rick Santorum was ‘pro-choice and a humanist.’
“And this was only two years before Rick Santorum ran for Congress!
“After learning these facts, when it comes to Rick Santorum, I can’t help but think of him as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“We’ve certainly seen candidates over the years use their “faith” as a campaign issue. We’ve certainly seen candidates who tell us they’re pro-life and then act quite differently once elected.
“I’m afraid that’s describes Rick Santorum to a tee!
“You see, the attacks on him for funding Planned Parenthood are 100% true.
“He’s even stated in a TV interview that he supports Title X funding, which sends our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood! You can see for yourself on youtube.
“He’s also time and again endorsed pro-abortion Republicans who work to defeat any efforts by Congress to save the lives of the unborn.
“I’m writing you because I believe this race for President is critical. I’m worried the facts about Rick Santorum won’t get out in time for this South Carolina Primary, and pro-lifers will be fooled into voting someone like Rick Santorum who DOES NOT share our values.
“He just wants to be President so badly, he’ll say anything to be elected. Period.”
The flier was signed, “In Christ, Elizabeth Leichert.”
Click here: Rick Santorum Is Getting The Worst Of South Carolina’s Dirty Politics – Business Insider
Asked for his reaction, Santorum replied: “It’s ugly, it’s cheap, it’s tawdry. It has no relationship to the issues at hand in this race, and we’re gonna treat it just like the ridiculous stuff that you see where you treat it for the value it is, which is zero.”
The report might have been “ugly, cheap and tawdry.” But it was also true.
As Karen Garver, the future Mrs. Santorum lived with obstetrician and abortionist Dr. Thomas E. Allen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for most of her 20s during the 1980s.
As a young nursing student, she shared his bed and liberal views on abortion, despite an age difference of 40 years.
Even more striking: Allen had delivered Karen as a baby in 1960. Her father, a pediatrician, got many client referrals through Allen.
‘When she moved out to go be with Rick,” Dr. Allen said in an interview in 2005, “she told me I’d like him, that he was pro-choice and a humanist. But I don’t think there’s a humanist bone in that man’s body.”
Click here: Rick Santorum’s wife Karen had love affair with abortion doctor | Daily Mail Online
Today, as Karen Santorum, she is the Catholic mother of seven and fiercely opposes abortion and birth control.
Karen Santorum
On April 10, 2012, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Santorum suspended his campaign. The nomination eventually went to former Utah Governor Mitt Romney.
In 2015, Rick Santorum once again declared himself a Republican candidate for President in 2016. But on February 3, 2016, he dropped out of the race and endorsed Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.
Unlike 2012, no mention was made of his wife’s unorthodox past—or of Santorum’s hypocritical embrace of it.
But abortion is the issue within the Republican party that ignites the greatest passion and fanaticism. No doubt this is because it combines an element of sex with the desire to repress the rights of others.
Just as no one in Nazi Germany could be safe from the charge of “race defilement,” no one in the current Republican party can ever be safe from the charge of being “soft” on abortion.
“Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves,” wrote the author Mercedes Lackey. “The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on March 26, 2018 at 12:03 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohm, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Ernst Rohm
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
So Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets—as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Among the SS commanders supervising those executions was Reinhard Heydrich—a tall, blond-haired formal naval officer who was both a champion fencer and talented violinist.
Ultimately, he would become the personification of the Nazi ideal—”the man with the iron heart,” as Hitler eulogized at Heydrich’s funeral just eight years later.
Reinhard Heydrich
Even so, Heydrich had a problem: He could never escape vicious rumors that his family tree contained a Jewish ancestor.
His paternal grandmother had married Reinhold Heydrich, and then Gustav Robert Suss. For unknown reasons, she decided to call herself Suss-Heydrich.
Since “Suss” was widely believed in Germany to indicate Jewish origin, the “stigma” of Jewish heritage attached itself to the Heydrich family.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service. But his arrogance and overweening ambition created a great many enemies.
Only a year later, he became the target of an urgent investigation by the SS itself. The charge: That he was part-Jewish, the ultimate sin in Hitler’s “racially pure” Nazi Germany.
The investigation cleared Heydrich, but the rumor of his “tainted” origins persisted, clearly tormenting the second most powerful man in the SS. Even his superior, Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer-SS, believed it.
When Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech commandos in Prague, Himmler attended his funeral. He paid tribute to his former subordinate at the service: ”You, Reinhard Heydrich, were a truly good SS-man.”
But he could not resist saying in private: “He was an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race.”
Those who dare to harshly judge others usually find themselves assailed just as harshly.
A modern-day example is Rick Santorum, the former United States Senator from Pennsylvania (1995 – 2007) and a Republican candidate for President in 2012 and 2016.
Rick Santorum
From his entry into politics, Santorum has been a fierce opponent of legalized abortion and even birth control. Among his comments on these issues:
- On why abortion should be illegal even in rape cases: “I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created—in the sense of rape—but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.”
- On criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortion: “I believe that, that any doctor who performs an abortion—that—I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion should be criminally charged for doing so.”
- On de-funding Planned Parenthood: “I can’t imagine any other organization with its roots as poisonous as the roots of Planned Parenthood getting federal funding of any kind. This is an organization that was founded on the eugenics movement, founded on racism.”
- On opposing birth control: “One of the things I will talk about [if elected President in 2012] that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’ It’s not okay, because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Like the Nazis, Republicans are eager to lecture their fellow citizens on “how things are supposed to be.” And to enforce their beliefs on “how things are supposed to be” with draconian laws.
So it no doubt shocked Santorum—and his anti-abortion supporters—when he found himself accused of being “soft” on abortion.
The attack came in the form of pink fliers appearing on car windshields at many South Carolina political events in January, 2012.
They were the work of Elizabeth Leichert, an anti-abortion activist.
Dated January 18, 2012, the flier read:
“Like many Christians I know, I was originally very attracted to Rick Santorum’s positions – especially on the Right to Life issue.
“But that was before I began digging into his record….
“Did you know Rick Santorum’s wife, Karen, had a six-year affair with an abortionist named Tom Allen?”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 19, 2018 at 1:18 am
While Adolf Hitler ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, “the persuasive influence of the Nazi regime reached into every corner of everyday life in Germany.”
So reads the paperback cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich.
“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents.
“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.”
And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945, a strange thing happened: Virtually no one in Germany admitted to having been a Nazi—or having even known one.
As for who was responsible for losing the war itself: As far as most Germans were concerned, that blame fell entirely on the man they had once worshiped as Der Fuhrer. If he had just let his brilliant generals run operations, Germany would have triumphed.
In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.
In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.
Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes.”
“Hogan’s Heroes”
“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.”
And that is why Republicans have stuck so closely with President Donald J. Trump.
A typical example of this occurred on June 8, 2017, after former FBI director James Comey testified before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Comey revealed that, on February 14, Trump had ordered everyone but Comey to leave a crowded meeting in the Oval Office.
“I want to talk about Mike Flynn,” said Trump.
Flynn had resigned the previous day from his position as National Security Adviser. The FBI was investigating him for his previously undisclosed ties to Russia.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” said Trump. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
This was clearly an attempt by Trump to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.
Yet Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan rushed to excuse his clearly illegal behavior: “He’s new at government, so therefore I think he’s learning as he goes.”
Paul Ryan
Republicans don’t fear that Trump will trash the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.
He has already attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense.
And despite Trump’s repeated threats to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Republicans have refused to enact any safeguards to prevent this. In fact, if Trump did so, it’s doubtful that most Republicans would vote to impeach and convict him.
The reason: They fear losing the support of his fanatical base—even if it constitutes only 36% of all registered voters.
At the same time, Republicans fear that Trump will finally cross one line too many. And that the national outrage following this will force them to launch impeachment proceedings against him.
But it isn’t even Trump they fear will be destroyed.
What they most fear losing is their own hold on nearly absolute power in Congress and the White House.
If Trump is impeached and possibly indicted, he will become a man no one any longer fears. He will be a figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
Like Adolf Hitler. Like Richard Nixon.
And his Congressional supporters will be branded as losers along with him.
Republicans vividly remember what happened after Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.
Thus, Americans who are fed up with the chaos and cruelties of the Trump administration must find a way to separate Trump from his knee-jerk supporters in Congress.
And here it is:
American voters need not wait until the fall elections to “send a message” to Republicans in the House and Senate. Instead, they can immediately launch recall campaigns against all Republicans in both houses of Congress.
That would have a far greater impact on Republicans than sending mere letters of outrage. Or even rejecting individual Republican candidates, such as Roy Moore in Alabama and Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania.
And this is where the Democratic party must finally show some backbone.
Democrats must launch an unceasing advertising campaign to persuade voters to force a nationwide recall of all Republicans.
Republicans must be forced to realize they will lose their privileged positions for supporting a vicious, unstable President who sells out the Nation to a hostile foreign power—Russia.
Only then will they sweep him out of the White House like a dead rat on the kitchen floor.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Social commentary on March 14, 2018 at 12:20 am
It was March 10, and President Donald Trump was on the campaign trail—and the warpath.
He was speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Officially, he was there to support State Representative Rick Saccone, the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives.
In reality, Trump was there to support his favorite candidate—himself.
Like Captain Philip Francis Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, Trump offered a mixture of anger, personal attacks, self-pity and self-glorification.
Like Napoleon, he spoke of himself in the third person:
- “Pennsylvania is the state that gave us the 45th president of the United States.”
- “President Moon of South Korea said without Donald Trump, the Olympics would have been a total failure. That’s true. True.”
He bragged about his great accomplishments as President:
- “So we are doing a great, great job.”
- “We have done more than any first term administration in the history of our country.” (So much for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which saved American business from its own excesses.)
- “I’ve got all the big builders, the best ones in the world. I know the best builders. We want to use the good builders, not the bad ones.”
- “By the way, if we coasted for two-and-a-half years, we did a hell of a job.” (He’s claiming that if he did nothing more in his term until 2020, he should still be re-elected.)
He gratuitously insulted “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd:
- “He’s a sleeping son of a bitch.”
Donald Trump
He attacked the news media:
- “A certain anchor on CNN …fake as hell CNN, the, fake as hell CNN, the worst, so fake, fake news.”
- “NBC is perhaps worst than CNN, I have to tell you. And MSNBC is horrible.”
He salivated at running in 2020 against Oprah Winfrey:
- “I’d love to beat Oprah. I know her weakness.” (But he never said what that was.)
He ridiculed the belief that a President should act in a dignified manner:
- “Remember how easy it is to be presidential? But you’d all be out of here right now. You’d be so bored.”
He celebrated his election as President in 2016:
- “One of the greatest nights in the history of television in terms of people watching.” (He didn’t say his win was good for the country, just that it was a great night in television history.)
- “Remember they said 270, you cannot—remember the famous 270? [The number needed to claim victory in the Electoral College.] He cannot win the election because he cannot get above 270.”
After praising his wife, Melania, for serving on a blue ribbon commission on the opioid addiction problem, he said blue ribbon commissions were useless:
- “We can’t just keep setting up blue ribbon committees with your wife and your wife and your husband, and they meet and they have a meal and they talk.”
He bragged about his academic record:
- “And, you know, I went to the Wharton School of Finance. That’s a great school. The best business school, I think.”
- “I went to school. I went to Wharton. I went to school here.”
He pathetically asked the audience to show that they loved him:
- “But you like me? I think so, right? I like you, too. I love you.”
- “Did I do a good job? Atlanta?” (He is referring to the Republican victory in Georgia’s Sixth District special election in 2017.)
He attacked fellow celebrities for not succeeding on TV:
- “Arnold Schwarzenegger failed when he did the show [The Apprentice] and he was a movie star. Martha Stewart failed.”
He praised his own appearance:
- “I hear he’s [Conor Lamb, the Democratic candidate running against Rick Saccone] better looking. I think I’m better looking than him. I do. I do.”
He attacked California’s Democratic Representative Maxine Waters:
- “She’s a low IQ individual. She can’t help it.” (He implies that she criticizes him because she’s stupid.)
He made a pitch for the women’s vote:
- “Women, women, we love you, we love you.” (This is dangerous territory for Trump. He has a long history of making improper advances toward women, if not actually assaulting them.
- (During the 2016 Presidential race, a leaked 2005 Access Hollywood tape revealed him saying that, as a celebrity, he could do anything with women: “Grab ’em by the pussy.”
- (Finally, he is now locked in a legal war with porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had a tryst with in 2006—just months after Melania gave birth to his son, Barron.)
He insulted Massachusetts’ United States Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been highly critical of him:
- “I was watching, during the campaign, and Hillary was sitting right there, and Pocahontas was up, she was so angry, you know, I think she’s losing the audience.”
Rick Saccone
* * * * *
Trump rambled on—unscripted—for more than an hour, barely mentioning Rick Saccone—the man he had supposedly come to support. At the end, Trump handed him the microphone and invited him to say a few words.
By the end of The Caine Mutiny, Stephen Maryk is acquitted of mutiny. Captain Queeg is presumably relieved of future commands.
By the end of President Trump’s bizarre and frightening campaign speech, it’s clear that America faces an uncertain and dangerous future.
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In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on March 13, 2018 at 12:03 am
Watching President Donald Trump’s campaigning for Pennsylvania State Representative Rick Saccone, some viewers might have flashed back to the climatic scene in the 1954 movie, The Caine Mutiny.
On March 10, Trump appeared at a rally for Saccone, who is campaigning in a special election for a Republican seat in the United States House of Representatives.
In 2016, Trump carried the 18th congressional district by 20 points. But now his favored candidate is fighting for his political life against Democrat Conor Lamb.
Nationwide, Republicans fear that if Saccone loses in the heart of “Trump country,” this could be a prelude to massive rejections by voters in November.
How did this come to be? Let’s start with The Caine Mutiny.
Based on Herman Wouk’s bestselling novel, it centers on the minesweeper USS Caine. Stationed in the Pacific during World War II, its captain is by-the-book Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg (Humphrey Bogart).
Movie poster for “The Caine Mutiny”
Queeg intends to restore a sense of discipline to the ship’s lax seamen. But he can’t admit mistakes, and his bullying approach to command alienates both officers and crew.
Soon after, a typhoon overtakes the Caine. Queeg becomes paralyzed with fear. His executive officer, Steve Maryk (Van Johnson), relieves the captain of command to prevent the loss of the ship. Maryk turns the Caine into the wind and rides out the storm.
Maryk is tried by court-martial for mutiny. His case looks hopeless: Queeg has been found sane by three Navy psychiatrists.
Naval Prosecutor Lt. Commander John Challee depicts Maryk as a reckless mutineer. And Queeg portrays himself as the persecuted victim of a malignant conspiracy by his own officers.
Knowing that Queeg reacts badly to stress, Maryk’s attorney, Lt. Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer) relentlessly cross-examines him:
GREENWALD: Were all your officers disloyal?
QUEEG: I didn’t say that. Only some were disloyal.
GREENWALD: Mr Keith and Mr Maryk?
QUEEG: Yes.
GREENWALD: Did you turn your ship upside down searching for a phantom key?
QUEEG: I don’t know what lies have been sworn to here, but a key definitely did exist.
PROSECUTOR LT. COMMANDER JOHN CHALLEE: The witness is understandably agitated. I request a recess.
QUEEG: I don’t want a recess. I’ll answer all questions right here and now.
GREENWALD: Did you conduct such a search?
QUEEG: Yes, I did. My disloyal officers failed me, and the key couldn’t be found.
GREENWALD: Wasn’t this whole fuss over a quart of strawberries?
QUEEG: The pilfering of food in large amounts or small is a very serious occurrence on board a ship.
GREENWALD: You were told that the mess boys ate the berries. There was no key.
QUEEG: The key was not imaginary. I don’t know anything about mess boys eating strawberries.
GREENWALD: Have you no recollection of a conversation with Ensign Harding? Didn’t he tell you that the mess boys ate the strawberries?
QUEEG: I remember he was grateful for his transfer.
GREENWALD: Do you know where Ensign Harding is now? He’s in San Diego. He can be flown up here in three hours if necessary. Would it serve any useful purpose to have him testify?
QUEEG: Now, there’s no need for that.
[He reaches into the pocket of his Navy coat and removes two little steel balls, which he rolls together whenever he feels under stress. He starts rolling them together now and continues to do so throughout the rest of the proceeding.]
Humphrey Bogart as Captain Philip Francis Queeg
Now that I recall, he might have said something about mess boys. I questioned many men, and Harding was not the most reliable officer.
GREENWALD: The defense has no other recourse than to produce Ensign Harding.
QUEEG: Now, there’s no need for that. I know exactly what he’ll tell you–lies. He was no different from any other officer in the wardroom. They were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn. If the crew wanted to walk around with their shirt-tails out, let them. Take the tow line–defective equipment.
But they began spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles. And then “Old Yellowstain.” I was to blame for Maryk’s incompetence and poor seamanship. Lt. Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Queeg.
But the strawberries, ah, that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes. But I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt and with geometric logic that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist. I could have produced that key if they hadn’t pulled the Caine out of action. I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer.
Naturally, I can only cover these things from memory. If I’ve left anything out, just ask me specific questions and I’ll be glad to answer them one by one.
[The courtroom falls silent–except for the tinkling of the steel balls that Queeg keeps rolling in his right hand. The judges stare at him as he does so. They say nothing, but it’s clear they know they’re looking at a man at the end of his sanity–and naval career.]
GREENWALD: No further questions, sir.
Maryk is acquitted.
* * * * *
So much for fiction. Now for the terrifying reality.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 7, 2018 at 12:28 am
One year and almost two months after taking office, President Donald Trump remains haunted by “the Russian connection.”
Throughout 2016, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) found numerous ties between officials of the Trump Presidential campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
And many of those he has appointed to office have strong ties to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One of these is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. In 2013, as the chief executive of ExxonMobil, he was presented with the 2013 Order of Friendship award. He had just signed deals with the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft. Its chief, Igor Sechin, is a loyal Putin lieutenant.
Rex Tillerson
Another such official is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the 2016 campaign, Session—hen serving as a surrogate for Donald Trump’s campaign—twice spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
But during his Senate nomination hearings, Sessions denied that he had had “communications with the Russians” during the campaign. Following this disclosure after he became Attorney General, Sessions removed himself from oversight of the investigation into Russian subversion of the election.
The discovery of numerous contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian Intelligence agents led the FBI to launch an investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. That investigation is still ongoing.
And the House and Senate Intelligence Committees launched their own investigations into the same.
On March 30, 2017, Clinton Watts, an expert on cyber warfare, testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. As part of his testimony, he presented a prepared statement on “Disinformation: A Primer In Russian Active Measures And Influence Campaigns.”
FROM WATTS’ STATEMENT: Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives. But winning a single election is not their end goal.
Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies….from the inside out [by] creating political divisions….
[Their ultimate goals are] the dissolution of the European Union and the break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
Achieving these two victories against the West will allow Russia to reassert its power globally and pursue its foreign policy objectives bilaterally through military, diplomatic and economic aggression.
Trump has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. On December 18, 2015, Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Its host, Joe Scarborough, was upset by Trump’s praise for Putin:
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, [he’s] also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?
TRUMP: He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.
SCARBOROUGH: But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.
TRUMP: I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on.
On July 22, 2016, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments hacked from computers of the highest-ranking officials of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Early reports traced the leak to Russian hackers.
At a press conference in Doral, Florida, Trump declared: “Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing—I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was nothing less than treason—calling upon a foreign power, hostile to the United States, to interfere in its Presidential election.
On December 16, 2016, then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
On October 19, 2016, Trump’s admiration of Putin became a major target for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
This occurred during their third and last Presidential debate.
CLINTON: … that the Russians have engaged in cyber attacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him, because he has a very clear favorite in this race.
So I think that this is such an unprecedented situation. We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election.
We have 17–17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing. And I think it’s time you take a stand…
TRUMP: She has no idea whether it’s Russia, China, or anybody else.
CLINTON: I am not quoting myself.
TRUMP: She has no idea.
CLINTON: I am quoting 17…
TRUMP: Hillary, you have no idea.
CLINTON: … 17 intelligence–do you doubt 17 military and civilian…
TRUMP: And our country has no idea.
CLINTON: … agencies.
TRUMP: Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 6, 2018 at 12:17 am
Clinton Watts is a consultant and researcher on cyberwarfare. He has served as
- A U.S. Army infantry officer;
- An FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF);
- The Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC); and
- As a consultant to the FBI’s Counter Terrorism Division (CTD) and National Security Branch (NSB).
In a statement he prepared for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he outlined cyberwarfare measures that Russia used to influence the 2016 Presidential campaign.
He delivered this on March 30, 2017. Part of this reads as follows:
Through the end of 2015 and start of 2016, the Russian influence system….began pushing themes and messages seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election.
Russia’s overt media outlets and covert trolls sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum with adversarial views toward the Kremlin. The final months leading up to the election have been the predominate focus of Russian influence discussions to date.
Clinton Watts
However, Russian Active Measures were in full swing during both the Republican and Democratic primary season and may have helped sink the hopes of candidates more hostile to Russian interests long before the field narrowed.
The final piece of Russia’s modern Active Measures surfaced in the summer of 2016 as hacked materials from previous months were strategically leaked.
On 22 July 2016, Wikileaks released troves of stolen communications from the Democratic National Committee and later batches of campaign emails. Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks revealed hacked information from a host of former U.S. government officials throughout July and August 2016.
For the remainder of the campaign season, this compromising material powered the influence system Russia successfully constructed in the previous two years.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump—as both Presidential candidate and President—has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the efforts of Vladimir Putin’s government to ensure his election.
Consider his exchange about this with Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during the third and final Presidential debate on October 19, 2016:
CLINTON: So I actually think the most important question of this evening, Chris, is, finally, will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this and make it clear that he will not have the help of Putin in in this election, that he rejects Russian espionage against Americans, which he actually encouraged in the past?
Those are the questions we need answered. We’ve never had anything like this happen in any of our elections before.
CHRIS WALLACE: Well?
TRUMP: That was a great pivot off the fact that she wants open borders, OK? How did we get on to Putin?
[After insisting that Clinton wants “open borders” and “people are going to pour into this country,” Trump deigned to address Wallace’s question.]
TRUMP: Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me.
If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president.
And I’ll tell you what: We’re in very serious trouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads—1,800, by the way—where they expanded and we didn’t, 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she’s playing chicken.
FROM WATTS’ STATEMENT: This pattern of Russian falsehoods and social media manipulation of the American electorate continued through Election Day and persists today.
Many of the accounts we watched push the false Incirlik story in July now focus their efforts on shaping the upcoming European elections, promoting fears of immigration or false claims of refugee criminality.
They’ve not forgotten about the United States either. This past week, we observed social media campaigns targeting Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst U.S. democratic institutions, their leaders and their constituents.
As we noted two days before the Presidential election in our article describing Russian influence operations, Russia certainly seeks to promote Western candidates sympathetic to their worldview and foreign policy objectives.
But winning a single election is not their end goal. Russian Active Measures hope to topple democracies through the pursuit of five complementary objectives:
- Undermine citizen confidence in democratic governance;
- Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
- Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions;
- Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign populations;
- Create general distrust or confusion over information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.
From these objectives, the Kremlin can crumble democracies from the inside out creating political divisions resulting in two key milestones:
- The dissolution of the European Union and
- The break up of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO).
FROM THE TRUMP-CLINTON DEBATE:
TRUMP: … from everything I see, [Putin] has no respect for this person.
CLINTON: Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.
TRUMP: No puppet. No puppet.
CLINTON: And it’s pretty clear…
TRUMP: You’re the puppet!
CLINTON: It’s pretty clear you won’t admit…
TRUMP: No, you’re the puppet.
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A POIGNANT ANNIVERSARY FAST APPROACHING
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 5, 2018 at 12:09 amFifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King was shot to death as he stood on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He had come there to lead a march of striking garbage workers.
New York United States Senator—and now Presidential candidate—Robert Francis Kennedy had been scheduled to give a speech in Indianapolis, Indiana, before a black audience.
Just before he drove into the city to deliver his address, he learned of King’s assassination. There was a real danger that rioting would erupt. Police who had been assigned to protect him said they wouldn’t accompany him into the inner city.
Kennedy drove off anyway, leaving behind his police escort.
Standing on a podium mounted on a flatbed truck, Kennedy spoke for just four minutes and 57 seconds.
His waiting audience hadn’t yet learned of King’s death. Kennedy broke the news to gasps, and then gave an impromptu speech eulogizing the slain civil rights leader.
For the first time since the assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, he spoke publicly of that killing. He noted that JFK—like King—had also been killed by a white man.
And he called upon the crowd to “dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world.”
Riots erupted in 60 cities following King’s death—but not in Indianapolis.
Fifty years ago, Robert Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort from those aroused by Donald Trump.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator from New York (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
In October, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his wise counsel helped steer America from the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. As a U.S Senator he championed civil rights and greater Federal efforts to fight poverty.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished—while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4—when he was shot in the back of the head.
His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel.
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6. He was 42.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
America has never again seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates have waged war on crime—and the poor. And Democratic candidates have moved to the Right in eliminating anti-poverty programs.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia—and the compassion to fight poverty. At a time when Americans long for candidates to give them positive reasons for voting, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
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